


It's Not a Date

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 08:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16215656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Fluffy fluff.





	It's Not a Date

It’s not a date. He swears. Well, that’s what he tells himself on the way there. Sternly. It’s not a fucking date. Because if it were a date he wouldn’t be wearing his casual black jeans and that sort of marl grey tee that’s a little bobbly and his older sneakers, the ones that aren’t so white anymore. Because if it were a date, he’d have flowers or chocolates or at the very least a bottle of wine on the seat next to him. He glances over to the empty spot. Should he have got something? He bangs the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. Shit. He should have got something. Anything. He indicates to turn into her road. It’s not a fucking date. Her building is nicer than his. There are trees in the street and the parking is easier and the steps are well made and it doesn’t smell like stale dust and cigarette smoke in the lobby. His hands are empty. He shoves them deep in his pockets. Then pulls them out, grit under his nails. Fuck. He tries to dig out the dirt but only succeeds in pushing it further down. Shit. She opens the door.

“Hey, you’re early.”

It’s not a fucking date. “Drove like Mario Andretti,” he says, walking past her.

“Why?”

Yeah. Why? Because it’s not like he’s going on a date. “No reason. Just wanted to…you know, put the pedal to the metal.”

She raises an eyebrow, but only mid-height, so that’s okay. ”You don’t need a speeding fine, Mulder. Not when we’re supposed to be having…” Her sentence peters out. She looks down. Her hair’s still damp and her cheeks are a little pink from the shower. From the shower. Scully’s had a shower. His blood heats in his veins and he feels his cheeks burning. A shower. It’s not a fucking date. “Hungry?” she says and it’s innocent enough, but now his mind is racing like Mario Andretti and he has to remember how to breathe before he can speak.

“What are you offering?” It’s a ridiculous thing to say. It’s a pitch higher than his usual tone. It’s got her eyebrow fully raised and a slight quirk in her lips.

“Whatever you want,” she returns, her voice a pitch lower than usual and it doesn’t sound ridiculous at all coming out of her mouth. She walks to her kitchen then and he realises this is the moment she should be putting flowers in a vase or uncorking the wine.

“I didn’t bring anything, Scully,” he says, still standing near the door. She turns to him and just looks at him. Blankly. “Sorry.” His hands are back in his pockets and there’s still grit in the corners.

“It’s not a date, Mulder,” she says and there’s a kind of giggle in her voice. Then she adds, “is it?” and now he’s not sure if it is or it isn’t and he can’t move.

She’s made a plate of snacks, cubes of cheese, cold meats, olives, crackers. He’s not sure when she did it or how. It just appeared in front of him and he finds himself reaching for a slice of salami and rolling it into a tube as she watches him. Her hair is curling at the ends but she doesn’t seem worried about it. She’s wearing a white shirt that nips in at her waist and a pair of blue jeans that skim her hips and he’s just noticed she’s barefoot and that does things to him that he shouldn’t allow. It’s not a fucking date.

She pops a square of cheese into her mouth and grins at him. The cheese makes a shape in her cheek and it stirs his insides. “I’ve got Steel Magnolias, Mulder,” she says, grinning now. “We could order pizza and stay in.”

What does that mean? Is that just a casual suggestion? Is there a deeper meaning? Does he say no, let’s head out, because perhaps that’s what she really wants. She wants him to take her out, to treat her. Or does he say, yeah, cool, that sounds perfect, because…because sitting next to Scully on her couch watching her watching a movie actually does sound perfect.

“I should have brought some beer,” he says. Because he really should have. Beer and pizza and Scully. On a couch. Together. Not flowers, or wine or chocolate.

She starts the movie and calls for the pizza. They’re on their second beer. The way her lips fit around the bottle is obscene. If he breaks it down. In that way. But this isn’t a date and he shouldn’t think about his partner like that. Her toes wiggle on the table in front of them. Fuck.

“What’s the most romantic movie you’ve ever seen, Mulder?”

Her question breaks him out of his fantasy and he has to dig deep to come up with an answer. Romantic? “Probably Cat People.” He chances a look at her. She draws her legs under her, sitting cross-legged so that her knee touches his thigh.

“That’s a horror movie, Mulder.”

“It was recently added to the National Film Registry for being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant, Scully.” The fizz of beer tingles in his throat. “The use of shadows instead of the monster adds to a rising tension and the relationship between Irena and Oliver is well-handled.” She’s laughing now. “I think it’s romantic, Scully. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I guess your idea of romance is different to mine,” she says and swigs her Shiner bock. The pop of the beer bottle leaving her mouth startles him.

“I never had you pegged for thinking about romance, Scully.” It’s out before he thinks and she takes more beer, moves her knee back, looks at the screen. Fuck.

“What about romantic dates, Mulder. What’s the most romantic thing you’ve done on a date?”

Fuck, fuck. He sits up. Downs some beer. Sinks some more. “Well,” he says, scouring his memory for appropriate stories, ones that don’t include salacious tales from his Oxford days or unsubtle gestures towards local girls during his teenage summers on the Vineyard. “I once wrote a love letter to Lucy O’Meara in fourth grade.”

She giggles. “What did you say?”

“Dear Lucy. I like the way your hair is the same shade as our dining room table after my mother has polished it and that your eyes are the same colour as the leaves on the magnolia tree in the front yard. I like the way your voice sounds like the weather presenter on the local channel and I like your father’s car. I’m going to the arcade this weekend. Will you come with me?”

Her knee brushes his thigh again. Harder. Her elbows are placed on her own knees and she’s clasped her fingers under her chin. He can see the lace edge of her bra when she leans forward. He can see her freckles. “Did she go to the arcade?”

“She did,” he says. “With Bobby Bellman.”

Her hand rubs his thigh. Up and down. Up and down. “Oh, poor Mulder. You must have been crushed.”

“It put me off romantic gestures for a long time,” he says. And the psychologist in him knows that it’s a half-truth. The other half has something to do with fear of commitment that stems from fear of rejection. Nobody would love him. He doesn’t deserve anyone. He just pisses people off. He doesn’t go on dates. Because he’ll just get it all wrong.

“Nobody ever wrote me a love letter,” she says, playing with a curl of hair. And he suddenly wants to recite poetry about Dana Scully, to paint her, to sculpt her, to compose an opera for her.

The doorbell sounds. “I’ll get it, Scully. It’s the least I can do.” She doesn’t argue. Just looks back to the screen, wistful.

“Perhaps romance is over-rated,” she says. He’s in the kitchen opening the lid of the pizza. It’s not been cut and he rifles through a drawer to find a knife. She’s still talking. “Perhaps it’s the scientist in me, perhaps I exude an air of rationality that precludes any notion of romanticism. Perhaps I’m just a-romantic?”

He cuts the pizza, all the while shaking his head and refuting her claims in his mind. Because he can see now that this is a date. This is a fucking date. And Dana Scully should be wooed and pursued and flattered and made to feel as special and as perfect as she really is. He collects two beers from the fridge, spies the note paper on the magnetised holder, rips off a sheet and scribbles across it while he’s still feeling bold. He slips it inside the pizza box.

She’s pre-Raphaelite on the sofa with her crinkling hair and slightly open mouth. He slides the box onto the coffee table and hands her a beer. She sips cautiously and he sits down, closer this time. He opens the box and she doesn’t see it at first. Then her mouth falls open and she blushes. She clutches the collar of her blouse and looks into the box, taking out the note and unfolding it. She reads it but doesn’t speak for a moment. A tortuous moment where he doesn’t breathe and the only sound is the murmuring of the characters on the movie.

“You cut the pizza into the shape of a heart, Mulder.” Her voice is broken pieces of gratitude strung together on a raspy note.

“And I wrote you a note, Scully,” he says.

“A love letter?” There are tears in her eyes and her nose is tipped with pink.

“I’m not good with words.”

As she reads, he sees her hands are trembling. “Dear Scully, you helped me get my shit together. And I that’s the most romantic thing anybody has ever done for me.”

She folds the note and puts it on the table top. She lifts the pizza out of the box and holds it between them. He puts his hand underneath the side nearest to him and they both bite into it. It’s hot, still, spicy. His fingers touch hers as they take another bite, faces closer. Two more bites and they lower the pizza because their noses are touching and he kisses the cheese from her mouth and lets her lick the spice from his lips. And when the pizza falls into his lap he’s pretty pleased that he wore his old jeans and that bobbly tee. And he’s pretty pleased that this isn’t a date. Because he’s not good at dates. Or romance. Or words.


End file.
